


Honeymop

by Anonymous033



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 15:17:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4268184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous033/pseuds/Anonymous033
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s at the Starling City Public Library, rifling through the shelves for a book that will help him with his school project because his loaded father won’t shell out money for something that ‘won’t be used more than a few times,’ when he accidentally kicks a worn pink sneaker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honeymop

**Author's Note:**

> To Milda, one of the kindest I have ever known: May success mark the path of all your future endeavours.

He meets her when he’s nine.

He’s at the Starling City Public Library, rifling through the shelves for a book that will help him with his school project because his loaded father won’t shell out money for something that ‘won’t be used more than a few times,’ when he accidentally kicks a worn pink sneaker.

“Watch it!” its owner snaps, smacking him in the leg. He stares down at the mop of yellow hair.

“ _You_ watch it! Why are you sitting in the aisle, anyway?”

“I’m _reading,_ ” the girl—Honeymop, he decides he’ll call her—answers in a tone which sounds like she thinks he’s stupid for asking.

Well— _well,_ he’s not the one sitting in the way of people passing through.

“Do you even know how to read?” he asks.

Honeymop’s chest puffs up. “I do too! Better than my class. That’s why Ms Lord told my mom she’s not allowed to teach me anymore.”

“Ms Lord is not allowed to teach you anymore?”

“No, my _mom_ isn’t!” Honeymop drops the book she’s holding and sighs. “Ms Lord says if I get too avance—”

“‘Advanced,’” he cuts in with superiority.

“ _That,_ ” she dismisses, “then I’ll be bored in class, and she doesn’t want me to go up two grades until the end of the year. She wants me to have something to do in class.”

“Oh.” He frowns. He has no idea what that means.

“Mom doesn’t know I’m here,” Honeymop adds.

“Won’t you get in trouble?”

Honeymop wriggles her shoulders. “Mom and Dad both work. Mrs Richards says I can come if we both keep it a secret. She’s sitting over there—” the girl gestures at the reading area, “—keeping the time.”

“Keeping what time?”

“The time we have before Mom and Dad get home, _duh._ ”

And to think the sneakiest thing he’s ever done is to steal two lollipops while Raisa wasn’t looking.

(He thinks Raisa probably knows, because she gives him the stink-eye now when he goes near the glass jar of candy—and it was just _two_ lollipops!)

“What do you know about fishes?” he asks. “I’m doing a school project.”

Honeymop’s eyes light up. “I know just the book.”

\-------------------------

Honeymop’s real name, he learns, is Felicity.

He makes up his mind to call her Honeymop, anyway, and only Honeymop _ever._ It’s his special name for her. She had glared at him for a full five minutes when he told her and had declared that she would call him ‘Dweeb’ from then onwards. It was a lot less creative and a _lot_ less nice than ‘Honeymop,’ but he had let her, because she was just a baby and ‘Dweeb’ actually didn’t sound all that mean when it fell from her lips.

Honeymop is _way, way_ smart, and she does end up skipping a grade at the end of the school year. They have met up in the library more times than he can count by then: His dad is happy about the sudden interest he’s taken in learning, but really, he’s just there so Honeymop can read to him.

Honeymop has the sweetest voice.

She also reads him a different book every week, so he does end up learning after all and it’s way more fun than when he’s alone and struggling to get through ten pages without falling asleep. The only time they go without _her_ reading is a few weeks before her ninth birthday, when she shows up looking sad and tells him that ‘Daddy left.’

He hugs her then and fishes _James and the Giant Peach_ out of the Children’s Fiction section to read to her because he knows Roald Dahl is her favourite author even though she never seems to read anything other than encyclopaedias when he’s there.

She calls him Oliver after that.

\-------------------------

“Careful, Honeymop!”

“Wait, what? Why are you—ow!”

The crash is resounding, and he winces as she falls to the ground.

“I’m sorry!” he shouts, rushing over to where she lies. She lifts her head and gives him the _most menacing_ scowl.

“Why did you let go?” she accuses.

“I thought you were ready!”

“I wasn’t ready to _learn_ for the first eight years, Oliver! I wouldn’t be ready after five minutes of you teaching me.”

Her dramatics only make him laugh. He collapses onto the ground next to her, belly-down so that they match, and prays that no insects crawl into his ear when he turns his head to look at her. “Maybe we should forget the bike,” he says. “You said it yourself—sports ain’t your thing.”

“Yeah, but everyone in my class knows how to ride one,” she replies, her eyes watering a bit.

“Did someone pick on you about this?” he asks perceptively. (Mr Brown had taught him that word.)

“Samantha and her friends,” she says. “She goes biking with her parents every weekend. Do you think if I was better at riding a bike, Daddy wouldn’t have left?”

“I think your dad would have to be stupid to leave for this reason,” he answers honestly. “I think it was something else. But he was stupid anyway, because you build the coolest computers and he doesn’t get to see that. What is a microprocessor, again?”

Honeymop groans. “The technology has been here forever, Oliver!”

“I’m only two years older than you!” he says defensively. “I don’t think I was there when they been-ed it.”

Honeymop opens her mouth, looking confused. “You’re so _young,_ ” she finally says.

“I am _not,_ ” he says indignantly. “I’m just not _old_ old yet.”

“Okay, here’s what we do,” she suggests, ignoring his grumbling. “You teach me how to ride a bike, and I teach you about microprocessors. Deal?”

He thinks about that. He isn’t really that interested in microprocessors, but it gets her distracted, and that was his plan in the first place; so, he nods and stands up to right the bike.

“Get on, Honeymop,” he says, patting the seat. “I won’t let go this time, I promise.”

\-------------------------

He graduates elementary school and goes on to middle school.

Their school times are different now, and that makes it harder for them to meet up, especially when he joins the football club and has practice two days a week; still, they try. It works at first.

Then, she graduates elementary school, too.

He would think that meant their times could work again, but the truth is they have been growing apart for a while now—she’s getting more obsessed with computers, and he’s getting more involved in football practice, and they don’t really have anything to talk about except for the one time she gets braces and he teases her for a whole hour before she reminds him that he had been ridiculously afraid of telling her he had a brand new _baby sister._

He shuts up after that, because if she didn’t tease him for having a sister, then he shouldn’t tease her for having braces.

Besides, she prefers him to Thea, which is a plus because everybody thinks babies are cute but _you’re twelve now, Oliver; it’s time to start acting like a man._

Tommy Merlyn is his new best friend, because Tommy Merlyn is more mature than Felicity Smoak.

His family has been friends with Tommy Merlyn’s family since forever, but Tommy and he had never been close because they had lived quite a distance apart.

Tommy’s recently moved, though, and they now attend the same middle school and go to the same football practices. Tommy’s fun, he decides, especially because all the pretty girls seem to flock endlessly around Tommy.

\-------------------------

“You’re late,” she announces unceremoniously when he shows up.

He cringes. “Sorry. Football practice.”

“That’s what you always say. And get your own!” she adds, smacking his hand when he reaches out to steal her French fries. “The damn service counter is right there.”

He withdraws his arm and nurses the sting, jutting his bottom lip out at her. “You’re so violent,” he criticizes. “It’s, like, one fry.”

“You are _late,_ ” she repeats.

“That’s no reason to hit me. Hitting is bad. Haven’t you ever been taught that?”

“You don’t count,” she retorts. “I’ve known you for, like, years.”

“I count!” he retorts. “Geez, you weren’t raised in a barn, Felicity. And it’s time to start acting like a grown-up. A cultured one.”

She tenses, and for a moment, he thinks she’s mad at his barn expression.

But then her blue blue blue eyes water behind her new black-rimmed glasses, and his heart drops. “You called me ‘Felicity,’” she whispers, her voice wavering.

“ _Shit,_ ” he mutters.

Her features become owlish as her face crumples, and he sits frozen as she blinks her eyes rapidly—

But then she takes a long, deep breath and pushes the French fries over to him.

“We can share,” she tells him. “That’s what _cultured_ grown-ups do, right?”

He decides silently that it’s wise to take one.

They resume normal conversation after that, but he can’t help feeling like he’s made a major mistake.

It isn’t until four years later, when he reflects back upon their meet-ups in a fit of nostalgia, that he realizes he had stripped them of their naïveté a little.

\-------------------------

She shows up with black hair and purple highlights.

“That’s new,” he drawls, and she rolls her eyes at him. She’s long outgrown her hitting phase, but he isn’t too sure how he feels about this Teenaged Felicity: She’s a lot more angsty and silent than she used to be.

Mrs Richards had passed away two years back, and it was like something had changed in Felicity since then; he thinks she’s probably lonely because she never had a new sitter and she doesn’t tend to go out with her friends, and sometimes he thinks he could’ve done more than he has, but he isn’t sure how to go about fixing that. Friendships in childhood are easy—but then everyone develops their own interests, and suddenly there’s a girl sitting across from him with purple-streaked hair, and he’s coughing awkwardly at her.

“How’s school?” he asks lamely.

Felicity rolls her eyes again, so hard that he has to bite his tongue to keep from telling her that they might fall out of their sockets. “School’s fine,” she answers. “Is that _really_ what we’re gonna talk about?”

“I don’t know what else we could talk about,” he admits, and it’s uncomfortably true: This is the first time he’s seen her face to face in six months.

“Well,” she starts, clasping her fingers together, “I’m going to college next year.”

“At sixteen?” he blurts before he can close his mouth. Thankfully, Felicity doesn’t roll her eyes at him again.

“I’m graduating early,” she says, flushing a little.

“Cool. Do you think you’ll manage?”

“ _Yes._ I’ve hung out with older kids my whole life, Oliver. I know how to handle them.”

That wasn’t actually what he meant by ‘manage,’ but—

“I’m sorry,” he offers guiltily, accepting the passive-aggressive gibe for what it is. “I kinda dropped the ball these few years.”

“Whatever.” Felicity shrugs. “I got Cisco and Caitlin, anyway.”

“I’m … glad.”

“Yeah.”

But she looks at him then, and the expression in her eyes is mellow. He thinks maybe it’s because she misses him.

Hell, he misses her.

She leans over and snags his packet of fries before sitting back and propping her feet against the bench he’s sitting on. “So, anyway—what’s new with you?”

\-------------------------

College suits Felicity well.

She excels in all her classes, which is nothing that out of the ordinary for her. She also gets a boyfriend, which is something a little out of the ordinary for her because of how isolated she had been in high school—he hates the guy by _name_ alone, but refrains from making any derogatory remarks because the guy makes Felicity smile.

Felicity hasn’t smiled in a long, long time (not around him, anyway), and he is all too glad to witness her find her footing again.

He goes to college, too, and then drops out; goes to another college, and then drops out again; goes to another college, and then—

Yeah, college doesn’t suit him well.

On the plus side, he and Felicity have begun mending their friendship. Frequent texting and phone calls once every fortnight become the norm, as is hanging out together during term breaks. They get summer jobs at the same place. (And okay, yeah, he doesn’t _need_ a part-time job, but he _likes_ having one around her.)

Then, when Felicity breaks up with her boyfriend, he drives all the way down to her campus to keep her company while she uses up two boxes of tissue paper. She decides to cheer up after that, because Felicity has never been one to dwell on sadness, but yeah—

The fact that he’d driven down at all makes him realize that he’s in deeper shit than he’d thought.

\-------------------------

“ _Fourth_ college,” Felicity says incredulously, pulling the dishtowel from her shoulder. “I’m surprised your dad is still letting you _go_ to college.”

“He says it’s the last one,” he replies dismally. “If I can’t stick at this for two years, I’m done for. Cut off. I’ll have to pay for college on my own.”

“Would you even? You hate college.”

“Yeah, I do, but I’m the Queen heir,” he points out. “Next in line to take over the empire of Queen Consolidated. And as much as I would like to forfeit it, I would prefer my parents stopped looking at me like I’m their biggest disappointment.”

Felicity pauses in the middle of wiping down the countertop then … and reaches out to pat his face, as if comforting him. He doesn’t think the sentiment translates, because he feels pitied more than anything else, but he does appreciate the gesture.

“You remember when I used to read to you?” she asks quietly.

He smiles. “How could I forget, Honeymop?”

Her cheeks colour. “Jumping back on the nickname bandwagon so soon?” she asks, ducking her head and smoothening down her blonde ponytail even though everything is in place.

“You were always Honeymop to me,” he murmurs. He sounds like a walking cliché right now—something right out of a dime-store romance novel (not that he’s read any!)—but with the way his heart has been fluttering lately whenever he sees her, curbing his tongue doesn’t seem worth the effort. “I just … momentarily forgot to cherish that privilege.”

She drops her hands and lifts her head and peers at him through glasses which refract the light shining through the huge windows of the ice-cream shop. He can’t see her eyes, so he has to swallow the urge to run away—his words were vague enough that she can interpret them however she wants to, anyway.

(And she’s gonna interpret them in a _friend_ kind of way, because who the hell that saw beyond his quintessential Bad Boy image would want him?)

“I guess you’re too old for me to call you ‘Dweeb’ now,” she says eventually, and something loosens in his chest. He laughs.

“ _You’re_ too old to be using the word ‘dweeb,’” he retorts. “Geez, we’re not in middle school anymore.”

“For the record, I stopped calling you ‘Dweeb’ before that,” she states.

“You did,” he agrees.

“Anyway, I was gonna say that we could do group study sessions.”

“We go to _different colleges._ ”

“It’s the _21st Century,_ ” she mocks, mimicking his intonation. “There’s such a thing as Skype. Get with the programme, dweeb.”

God, he’s grinning madly. “Fine,” he concedes. “Fine. We’ll do your group study Skype sessions.”

“Don’t act like it’s such a pain,” she huffs with a returning grin. “Because I? Am awesome. You’ll never get enough of me. Also, _we_ are gonna help you graduate.”

\-------------------------

He does. Graduate, that is. He even shells out money for an extra ticket to his graduation ceremony because he wants her to be there beside his mother and his sister when he collects his scroll. She herself had graduated college the previous year—typical her—and then gone on to grad school, but she’s still always managed to make time for him, and god … god, he’s just so grateful he has her.

She finishes grad school a few months after that. He attends her graduation ceremony.

And then she gets a job at some enterprise he’s never heard of and he gets bummed out about it because it’s two hours’ commute from Starling City, and so he doesn’t hesitate to voice his dissent.

“Come work at Queen Consolidated,” he says. “We could use the talent. I could get my dad to give you a fancy office with glass walls.”

She laughs at him. “This is _precisely_ why I won’t work at Queen Consolidated,” she responds.

“Okay, so we won’t give you a fancy office with glass walls. But—”

“Oliver, I know my value. If I played my cards just right, I could open a lot of doors for myself by doing nameless, faceless grunt work in some cramped office for two years—because that’s the kinda thing that would make people sit up and pay attention and want to find out who I am. I’m not a ‘prized betta in a fishbowl’ kind of girl—I’m a … scary, lurky, ‘deep-sea monster that scientists are fascinated about’ kind of girl.”

He snickers at the completely nonsensical metaphor. “You could still be a deep-sea fish at Queen Consolidated.”

“Yeah, but then my success would be accused of not being a hundred per cent my own.”

“Is it because you’re friends with me?” he asks morosely.

She moves to cover his hand with hers. “Yeah, it is,” she tells him gently. “But also because I’m not sure if I want to stay _only friends_ with you forever.”

….

She’s looking at him so expectantly.

Oh.

“Just so you know where I stand,” she continues hurriedly. “It’s not something you have to consider if you’re opposed to it, and I’m not saying it _has_ to happen. I’m just—”

“Take the other job,” he interrupts, and she barely has time to react before he’s leant in and kissed her.

\-------------------------

At some point, they get married and have two kids. The end.

* * *

Crossposted to: [Tumblr](http://anonymous033.tumblr.com/post/123195357132/honeymop-an-oliver-felicity-one-shot-au)


End file.
